The G-20 Must Get Its Act Together: Gordon Brown

The G-20 lost it way after 2009 when its member states abandoned efforts to coordinate global economic policies for national solutions. Going alone though has reached its limits. The way forward to sustained growth and employment is not through a flurry of one-off national initiatives, but rather through global policy coordination.

LONDON – Politics trumped sensible economics in the United States this summer, when Congress and President Barack Obama could not agree on taxes, entitlements, deficits, or an investment stimulus. Europe’s leaders were also paralyzed – ruling out defaults and devaluations, as well as deficits and stimulus. And, having run negative real interest rates, printed money, plowed in liquidity, and subsidized commercial banks, central bankers everywhere – most recently US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke – appear to have concluded that they, too, have reached the limit of what they can do.

As a result, few people today doubt that the world is drifting, rudderless and leaderless, towards a second downturn. The pre-summer debate about whether we faced a “new normal” of slower growth has been resolved: nothing now looks normal. Muddling through has failed. Unable to conclude a global trade deal, climate-change agreement, growth pact, or changes in the financial regime, the world is likely to descend into a new protectionism of competitive devaluation, currency wars, trade restrictions, and capital controls.

But this is not a time for defeatism. Countries claiming to have reached the limit of what they can do really mean that they have reached the limit of what they can do on their own. The way forward to sustained growth and employment is not through a flurry of one-off national initiatives, but rather through global policy coordination.

That was the goal back in April 2009, when the G-20 set itself three critical tasks. The first, preventing a global depression, was achieved. The other two – a growth pact, underpinned by a reformed global financial system – should now be the main items on the G-20’s agenda when it meets.

In 2010, the International Monetary Fund estimated that a coordinated approach to macroeconomic, trade, and structural policies could achieve 5.5 percent higher global GDP, create 25-50 million additional jobs, and lift 90 million people out of poverty. But a global growth pact looks even more indispensable today, given the world economy’s structural problems and huge imbalances between production and consumption.

It may seem strange to describe the greatest financial crisis since the 1930’s as a symptom of a bigger problem. But, when historians look back on the wave of globalization after 1990 – which has brought two billion new producers into the world economy – they will find a turning point around 2010. For the first time in 150 years, the West (America and the European Union) was out-manufactured, out-produced, out-exported, out-traded, and out-invested by the rest of the world.

Indeed, by the early to mid-2020’s, the Asian consumer market will be twice the size of the US market. Today, however, the West and Asia remain mutually dependent. Two-thirds of Asia’s exports still end up in the West, and south-south trade accounts for just 20 percent of global turnover.

Put another way, ten years ago the US engine could drive the world economy, and ten years from now the emerging-market countries stand to take over that role, particularly given the rising purchasing power of their middle classes. But, for now, America and Europe cannot expand their consumer spending without increasing exports, while China and the emerging markets cannot easily expand their production or consumption without the guarantee of strong Western markets.

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Contributors

Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom from 1992 to 2007. Prime Minister of the UK between 2007 and 2010. Inaugural 'Distinguished Leader in Residence' at New York University. Advisor at World Economic Forum

Dr Steinbock is an internationally recognized expert of the multipolar world. He focuses on international business, international relations, investment and risk among all major advanced economies and large emerging economies. In addition to advisory activities (www.differencegroup.net), he is affiliated with India China and America Institute (USA), Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and EU Center (Singapore). For more, please see http://www.differencegroup.net/. Research Director of International Business at India China and America Institute (USA) and Visiting Fellow at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore).

Asia Pathways is a blog of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI). ADBI welcomes contributions to Asia Pathways. Information on how to contribute to the blog is available at our guidelines for authors.

Located in Tokyo, Japan, ADBI is the think tank of the Asian Development Bank. Its mission is to identify effective development strategies and improve development management in ADB's developing members countries. ADBI has an extensive network of partners in the Asia and Pacific region and beyond. ADBI's activities are guided by its three strategic priority themes of inclusive and sustainable growth, regional cooperation and integration, and governance for policies and institutions.